THURSDAY

Thursday.
Wind rattles the houses,
Then shakes them.
Windows crack.

It is more like thunder than wind.
Every so often,
A great tree flies by
Doing handstands.

Its roots wave like wild hair.
A whole town blows over
And the sky
Darkens with churches,
Houses, one town hall,
A store. Flowerpots,
Stone angels,
Statues
Burrow into the ground.

And then it begins.
A thin old crone is blown
In through a window;
The wife of the house rises,

And without a word,
She lets the wind take her.
She lands in the church steeple
On the sexton's straw mat.
The wind puts the sexton's wife in jail
And the convict is astonished.

Oh, it goes on like this all day
And all are well pleased.
All doors are open
And at twilight

The house keys hang from the high boughs
Like fruit for the crows.
The key-maker is well-pleased.
He rests his head
On the pillow of a prosperous day.

The thin spinster
Turns on her cot,
Cool in a new season.
Her sister grins to herself.

In another house,
A man asks for aged cheese,
An his wife eyes him slyly.

In their dreams,
The setting sun strikes the keys
And the town glows gold

All the wild night,
The keys chime high in the trees,
Ancient music
Only the wind knows.